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FAQ - AD/AH Exploit Follow-Up

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  • zeeny1zeeny1 Member Posts: 8 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    So, what happens to the Zen that people made from this exploit? I have been helping to deliver my 3rd child for last 40 hours, I finally get home from hospital while the missus rests and want to play a little NWO? I cannot because of a massive exploit which I dont understand fully what transpired? Can anyone fill me in at all, and not give me the 'company' line?

    Congratulations on the new baby! Without going into details, some people were cheating with the AH. I do not understand it fully. But, it broke the economy. BADLY broke the economy according to friends. However, Cryptic did the right thing and rolled back toons to when they identified the situation. I think they missed the fact that people we using the exploit before then, but then again, if they rolled toons back several days, people would have worse fits than now.

    What you, I, and everyone else needs to remember is that this is BETA. It is a trial run to work the bugs out before going live. The fact that they were smart enough to do an open beta to allow as much true testing on all the systems as possible was a really good indication that they do have a clue about what they are doing. This is the best way to have every exploit identified, every weak link exposed under as much stress as possible. They would have been fully within their rights to wipe the servers and start everyone over again. I think a roll back was a good solution under the circumstances.

    It is a very sad fact of life that everyone has to suffer for the acts of a few. As it is in RL, so it is in gaming. There are always going to be wrong-doers. Always. It is just sad. I hope they back track people exploiting before it came to their attention and ban their IP addresses. On ALL their games. That is what they deserve.
  • unscrewedunscrewed Member Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    fotzik wrote: »
    So basicly it's okay to cheat and exploit the game as long as you do it before it's publicly known.. Okay, nice take on this. A complete wipe would've solved the issue, this did not, there's a lot of people that went unpunished with this action. The exploti has been in effect since the head start and it's been more heavly exploited the past 2-3 days, still all you did was a 7 hour rollback to solve it, sure you will investigate more but I doubt you'll spend the time and resources to find everyone, that'll take a long, long, time due to the size of the issue (head start people)..

    Exactly. I wonder if they are going to keep the same world once this game gets released publicly.
  • ashkedawnashkedawn Member Posts: 113 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Thanks genryu20, appreciate that..been doing a bit of reading since I posted, this really doesn't look good does it?
    Wow, I really have enjoyed this game for last 3 weeks, but I may have to re-evaluate if I am to spend any more money on this game or even play it :(
    What a shame a minority can do soooo much damage to the wider community. Bugger!

    sadly the company itself is doing more damage to the community than the exploiters did. everything could be fixed with a wipe. nobody would have exploited items, zen or ad, the exploit would be fixed and the economy would be reset.

    instead the company continues to screw over the players by allowing those who received items, zen or ad to keep them. the economy is ruined and will take months to stabilize...assuming it will. and to top it all off they insult us by saying oh and here's a little gift for your patience...thus rewarding a second time those who benefited from the exploit while paying off the rest of us for "sticking in there through the trouble".

    yeah...the damage just keeps coming and they seem to have no clue. they knew of the exploit and what it could do from another of their games, they knew the exploit was in this game since alpha testing and did nothing, the know they haven't caught all the exploiters, they know that there are still items, zen and ad in game that they will never catch, they know the economy is borked.....but they do nothing to actually fix it.
  • genryu20genryu20 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 2
    edited May 2013
    Thanks genryu20, appreciate that..been doing a bit of reading since I posted, this really doesn't look good does it?
    Wow, I really have enjoyed this game for last 3 weeks, but I may have to re-evaluate if I am to spend any more money on this game or even play it :(
    What a shame a minority can do soooo much damage to the wider community. Bugger!

    dont despair. The game will be fixed, and already is working on being fixed. Dont listen to the negative ppl who are demanding instant fixes and not getting them so they rage and bring community down >.> lol
  • unscrewedunscrewed Member Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    zeeny1 wrote: »
    Congratulations on the new baby! Without going into details, some people were cheating with the AH. I do not understand it fully. But, it broke the economy. BADLY broke the economy according to friends. However, Cryptic did the right thing and rolled back toons to when they identified the situation. I think they missed the fact that people we using the exploit before then, but then again, if they rolled toons back several days, people would have worse fits than now.

    What you, I, and everyone else needs to remember is that this is BETA. It is a trial run to work the bugs out before going live. The fact that they were smart enough to do an open beta to allow as much true testing on all the systems as possible was a really good indication that they do have a clue about what they are doing. This is the best way to have every exploit identified, every weak link exposed under as much stress as possible. They would have been fully within their rights to wipe the servers and start everyone over again. I think a roll back was a good solution under the circumstances.

    It is a very sad fact of life that everyone has to suffer for the acts of a few. As it is in RL, so it is in gaming. There are always going to be wrong-doers. Always. It is just sad. I hope they back track people exploiting before it came to their attention and ban their IP addresses. On ALL their games. That is what they deserve.

    In the gateway people were bidding negative offers, so let's say you have charcoal, you could bid: "-100,000,000 gold."
    Once the auction got expired, the one who won the auction, would get 100,000,000 gold plus the item.
    The one who placed the auction would get -100,000,000 gold and no item.

    So it's like people were using money that didn't exist.
  • bozsebozse Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 12 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    nflftw wrote: »
    Again, others have said in this thread, it is not difficult to search log files, and the amount of individual attention they'd have to pay is small in this case because a very small number of people knew about it before the rollback time.

    The amount of people doing it has very little to do with anything when it comes to removing the duped AD, it's spread throughout basically all characters by now.

    And your solution to leave the AD on the innocents is what will lead to a compromised economy, which is my point to begin with...
  • melanducciomelanduccio Member Posts: 6 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    It seems that the bunch of bugs that allowed some users to exploit the AH/AD has been going on for more than 7 hours (or 70 for what matters). Given this situation there are a few point I'd like you to address:
    1) Economy is clearly screwed up, maybe in the last 7 hours there has been an increased use of the exploit, but the exploit itself has biased all the economy since a long time, so seven hours rollback will be the tiny garze on a wound that requires actual surgery
    2) How are you going to evaluate the damage done to those player (the majority, I hope) who has played by the rule, maybe throwing a few dollars/euros into your game? All the items in the founder pack are considerably less valuable, given the use of this exploit, so gamers were actually paying lots of money for something that wasn't exactly that valuable, expecially compared to those rapscallions who easily exploited the game
    3) What measure are you taking against this bunch of people? Hope the ban is the least of them. Also I would like to be completely sure that no difference of treatment will be applied to paying users (people with founder title, hero of the north pack etc) and simple players (people who spent no actual money on the game). I am sorry, but since I was considering to spend my recreation time in this game, I would like to be in an enviroment where everyone must follow the rule, otherwise I'll rather spend my time in other games
    4) Given the situation, I would just consider the total wipe. Erase characters, erase market, erase everything. I know people invested into this game some real money and were blissed enough to find the epic horse and whatnot. Maybe track them, maybe consider to give them a special token to get those special items back on their first new character. I think a fresh start is in order to repair the game and make it fair for everyone, I also think you should take care of those people who found gifts and whatnot. At the moment I will feel like playing in an enviroment where some losers ****ed up the economy and now I have to abide their rules even if they got banned (strange resemblance with actual political situation in my Country, sigh) and this is really bad for me. I don't have much time to spend on games, luckily I've got a job, a girlfriend and so on, so the time I spend gaming has to be pure fun/no concerns for me. At the moment this is not what I feel with the game and it is really bad, because I haven't enjoyed a game this much for a long long time.

    Hope you could spare some answers to this post. The game you made is beautiful and really enjoyable, also the constant feedback to people on FB/twitter is really good and helps to keep the gamer mass quiet.
  • necrodaggernecrodagger Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    thanks for update :)

    looking forward to the gift items :)
  • dngrmse1dngrmse1 Member Posts: 23 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Wow invasion of the Join Date: May 2013 Users and they all seem to be either defending the game or asking for a wipe. Employees and banned exploiters on new accounts?

    I only started playing a week ago. So?

    I'm glad there wasn't a wipe, (even though it would have barely affected me). The rollback seems the best way to deal, at least in the short term, with the worst of the exploiters. I would imagine that PW will continue their investigations, and further actions against the accounts of cheaters will be happening.
  • ases3noases3no Member Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    oh my god what happened to my 2m AD? I didn't do any exploit or something i didn't even know what was going on and how to do that exploit. i learned all these things after the ah is closed. i bidded an item 2 days ago for 1.5m and that was outbidded and i sold 2 more items for around 200k. i had 2.4m before the server shotdown now i have only 286k! can you answer me for this situation please?
  • nevfenevfe Member Posts: 214 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    It seems to me the company needs to explain why an exploit which, by all accounts, was reported to them BEFORE they even opened up the beta and was discovered in another of their games (STO) was allowed to persist auntil it got completely out of hand.

    Pretending they only just found out about the bug yesterday is duplicitous at best and fraudulent at worst.
  • psuedomonaspsuedomonas Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 147 Bounty Hunter
    edited May 2013
    unscrewed wrote: »
    In the gateway people were bidding negative offers, so let's say you have charcoal, you could bid: "-100,000,000 gold."
    Once the auction got expired, the one who won the auction, would get 100,000,000 gold plus the item.
    The one who placed the auction would get -100,000,000 gold and no item.

    So it's like people were using money that didn't exist.

    Oh dear! And apparently I just read that this was known about in another game? How does something like this escape their attention? Wow, just wow! We had the makings of a fantastic little MMO here, and this could very well break it!
    I read another post in answer to my question, cant remember who, said that we are still in Beta. That's a good point! We are still in beta, so therefore this should result in a wipe should it not?. After all, its only beta? Ahhh there's the kicker! We had full access to the cash shop? SO, if the exploiters used their ill gotten Zen from exploited AD's and bought stuff from the Cash Shop, did CRYPTIC?PWE get those sales?
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • xaiim7xaiim7 Member Posts: 40
    edited May 2013
    It seems that the bunch of bugs that allowed some users to exploit the AH/AD has been going on for more than 7 hours (or 70 for what matters)...

    Agreement, but there isnnt need wipe character (there can stay name, rolled atr.), like before first login ... even, give XP back withnout items, etc.
  • jn2002dk1jn2002dk1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    nflftw wrote: »
    Again, others have said in this thread, it is not difficult to search log files, and the amount of individual attention they'd have to pay is small in this case because a very small number of people knew about it before the rollback time.

    I mean in this case I feel like you are just defending a position because you are one of those people that doesn't like being wrong. I know there have been other exploits which were worse, but this time, it would greatly surprise me if they couldn't do something like, I don't know, not taking small amounts of AD from innocents? It's not that hard to imagine man, come on.
    1. This exploit has existed since closed beta

    2. It's not just a small number. Lets say 10 ppl did it. They then used AD to buy Zen or other things from 5 players each. Now it's 50 ppl. Those 50 ppl then used this tainted AD to buy stuff from 5 other ppl each. Now it's 250 ppl and it goes on. Nevermind the fact that it's probably more than 10 people to begin with so i'd imagine it's a very large amount of transactions they'd have to go through and lots of innocent people will be affected by this too since they've likely come in contact with this tainted AD
  • suiksagasuiksaga Member Posts: 5 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    It blows my mind how anyone can be happy, not only did people lose real money in this open beta but most of the zen to ad exchanges became null. I have played STO for a long time and I have given up playing that on the same ground that this same exact issue happened there. I can not foe the life of me understand how cryptic could end up allowing this same exploit/bug to pop up in another one of their games even though they went though almost the same exact thing months earlier in STO.

    That is the issue I have the most this was reported just like many other issues with the foundy both in STO and neverwinter have been reported, yet time and time again the dev team has chosen to ignore or state they never got these reports. I am sadden for all those that got the short end of the stick, if I had spent money in a open beta that was basically a soft launch i would be up in arms as well. For those defending cryptic as usual defenders do shame on you, seeing as this is not the first time I have seen this go down badly I might add I just shake my head and facepalm yet again in sadness knowing people will take almost any lie or even mistreatment from a company just to be able to play a game..
  • zerafox0zerafox0 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 7 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    What happened to no roll back?

    It was stated, "No character wipes"... Rollbacks are different, and less devastating.
    But if you'd rather they wipe your character's completely.....
  • ashkedawnashkedawn Member Posts: 113 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    dngrmse1 wrote: »
    I only started playing a week ago. So?

    I'm glad there wasn't a wipe, (even though it would have barely affected me). The rollback seems the best way to deal, at least in the short term, with the worst of the exploiters. I would imagine that PW will continue their investigations, and further actions against the accounts of cheaters will be happening.

    the problem is it won't deal with the exploiters at all. they have mule accounts, faked ip addresses and so on. plus they then, intentionally to mess up the economy even more, gave away mounts, companions, ad to other players, guilds and so on.

    there are guilds out there where everyone received cats and mounts. those are not going to be touched by the rollback or by the company...they get to keep them

    this was not the best way to deal with it, this was the very least they could do and get away with it. they took the easy way out so they can keep their game running, keep the money they made, and make a minority of people happy. the economy is still fubar'd and will take months and months to recover. there is a large group of players who have all kinds of stuff they shouldn't and are not being punished or having the stuff removed.
  • fotzikfotzik Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    dngrmse1 wrote: »
    I only started playing a week ago. So?

    I'm glad there wasn't a wipe, (even though it would have barely affected me). The rollback seems the best way to deal, at least in the short term, with the worst of the exploiters. I would imagine that PW will continue their investigations, and further actions against the accounts of cheaters will be happening.

    Yeah most people don't get it that the game was released on the 30th last month, basicly this month.

    I'm sad there wasn't a wipe. The exploit has been in use a lot the last 2-3 days but not at the scale during those last 7 hours but still, it was used enough to impact the economy. Then there's been acutions here and there since the head start.
  • xaiim7xaiim7 Member Posts: 40
    edited May 2013
    It is very funny, when there is bug = generator 100,000,000 gold by action :). Just ONE player can destroy economy with this bug.
  • air133air133 Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Its just a shame that i spent my entire Sunday playing this (awesome) game, leveled from 18 to 26 , earned so much gold and rar items and for what? I played over 8 Hours yesterday, doing everything, it was my only day off in weeks and it has been taken from me... thats insane, im truely furious right now and dont support this at all!!! BTW: I really hope some of the people responsible for this read this and feel not just a little, but really really guilty about what they
  • kyxoankyxoan Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 31
    edited May 2013
    I disagree with you that stuff won't be wiped. If I got banned somehow and I was on for 10 minutes yesterday, spent the money I spent and never exploited anything, then it seems like they are OVERBANNING / punishing people. I can assure you with 100% confidence that I never exploited anything. The most that could have happened, is someone could have purchased something off of me with cheated AD from the AH, in which case I have no way of stopping. If I got banned for that, then I expect other people who actually laundered money to get banned as well.

    The difference is I should be unbanned because they will see I did nothing wrong.
  • maxwelsilvermaxwelsilver Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 48
    edited May 2013
    Lesson learned... Never "Support" a game in BETA by buying a founder's anything, especially from Cryptic, and never again on a FTP. Exploiters, who have been using an exploit found in another game of theirs, just solidifies the fact that they used copied code to expedite their true goal of opening the zen shop for profits under the guise of "Open Beta", and this is just a re-skin of old code. For those of us that spent real $$ for founder's packs, we have all been robbed, as they aren't willing to fix the economy and will let ill gotten gains go unchecked, making that award of AD worthless, and showing their true colors of "Profit motive above all else" Just a note to you at Cryptic, I won't be spending another dime on this game, or any other you produce; and with lack of content, and linear play, (including your new yet to be released module) I suspect it will end up being a flash-in-the-pan phenomenon till the hype gets old... This is the sole reason why FTP doesn't work, and subscription models is where things need to get back to as there will always be a deviant element out there without a shred of morals, that thrives on doing these types of things. It's just sad that Cryptic as well as other title houses allow it to happen, and promote it by not really doing much because of their own greed.
  • ysthysth Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    It seems that the bunch of bugs that allowed some users to exploit the AH/AD has been going on for more than 7 hours (or 70 for what matters). Given this situation there are a few point I'd like you to address:
    1) Economy is clearly screwed up, maybe in the last 7 hours there has been an increased use of the exploit, but the exploit itself has biased all the economy since a long time, so seven hours rollback will be the tiny garze on a wound that requires actual surgery
    2) How are you going to evaluate the damage done to those player (the majority, I hope) who has played by the rule, maybe throwing a few dollars/euros into your game? All the items in the founder pack are considerably less valuable, given the use of this exploit, so gamers were actually paying lots of money for something that wasn't exactly that valuable, expecially compared to those rapscallions who easily exploited the game
    3) What measure are you taking against this bunch of people? Hope the ban is the least of them. Also I would like to be completely sure that no difference of treatment will be applied to paying users (people with founder title, hero of the north pack etc) and simple players (people who spent no actual money on the game). I am sorry, but since I was considering to spend my recreation time in this game, I would like to be in an enviroment where everyone must follow the rule, otherwise I'll rather spend my time in other games
    4) Given the situation, I would just consider the total wipe. Erase characters, erase market, erase everything. I know people invested into this game some real money and were blissed enough to find the epic horse and whatnot. Maybe track them, maybe consider to give them a special token to get those special items back on their first new character. I think a fresh start is in order to repair the game and make it fair for everyone, I also think you should take care of those people who found gifts and whatnot. At the moment I will feel like playing in an enviroment where some losers ****ed up the economy and now I have to abide their rules even if they got banned (strange resemblance with actual political situation in my Country, sigh) and this is really bad for me. I don't have much time to spend on games, luckily I've got a job, a girlfriend and so on, so the time I spend gaming has to be pure fun/no concerns for me. At the moment this is not what I feel with the game and it is really bad, because I haven't enjoyed a game this much for a long long time.

    Hope you could spare some answers to this post. The game you made is beautiful and really enjoyable, also the constant feedback to people on FB/twitter is really good and helps to keep the gamer mass quiet.

    What he said.

    Seriously, this has been around since the closed betas, its nothing new. Hopefully you do something more meaningful than the paltry 72 hour bans for the ones at the forefront of the GF exploit (where you let them keep the loot / AD they gained). The same Officer Brady stance was taken for the Dungeon Delve loot chest exploit where you could walk into any regular dungeon during delves and get T1/T2 epic loot out of the chest, nothing was done about that exploit except a patch; move along, nothing to see here.

    At the very least you need to ensure to ban/wipe alts and extra free accounts tied to the owners of the exploiters. How many posts did you see here on your very forums clowning Cryptic/PW that *one* character was touched and all the alts and mule accounts were still filled to the rafters with loot/AD ?

    Maybe listening to your community for once and reducing the ridiculous pricing in the Zen store would be a start. Ten dollars for a bag? That is not account wide? Really? You need to make two bags, leave the one there alone so it may sold for AD to folks without the means to purchase Zen. Have another (FOR THE SAME PRICE) that is account bound, untradeable, and available to all toons on the purchasing account. It is not rocket science. Its actual customer care and response to massive feedback.

    I'm sure your potion pack will make everything all right though (sarcasm). Feel like you just shot in my mouth with the band aid fixes and pats on the head.
  • wastingsanitywastingsanity Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Lesson learned... Never "Support" a game in BETA by buying a founder's anything, especially from Cryptic, and never again on a FTP. Exploiters, who have been using an exploit found in another game of theirs, just solidifies the fact that they used copied code to expedite their true goal of opening the zen shop for profits under the guise of "Open Beta", and this is just a re-skin of old code. For those of us that spent real $$ for founder's packs, we have all been robbed, as they aren't willing to fix the economy and will let ill gotten gains go unchecked, making that award of AD worthless, and showing their true colors of "Profit motive above all else" Just a note to you at Cryptic, I won't be spending another dime on this game, or any other you produce; and with lack of content, and linear play, (including your new yet to be released module) I suspect it will end up being a flash-in-the-pan phenomenon till the hype gets old... This is the sole reason why FTP doesn't work, and subscription models is where things need to get back to as there will always be a deviant element out there without a shred of morals, that thrives on doing these types of things. It's just sad that Cryptic as well as other title houses allow it to happen, and promote it by not really doing much because of their own greed.

    They had the same issue since Champions Online. They haven't had a good game since City of Heroes.
  • feneantrfdfeneantrfd Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    The thread was too long to read but my question:

    What if you discover that this rollback is not enough, what is the plan then? Unless you can guarantee that the additional AD was removed from the economy, honest players will never be able to use the auction house again and how are we expected to compete against people who could have maxed all crafters to level 20?
  • unscrewedunscrewed Member Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Oh dear! And apparently I just read that this was known about in another game? How does something like this escape their attention? Wow, just wow! We had the makings of a fantastic little MMO here, and this could very well break it!
    I read another post in answer to my question, cant remember who, said that we are still in Beta. That's a good point! We are still in beta, so therefore this should result in a wipe should it not?. After all, its only beta? Ahhh there's the kicker! We had full access to the cash shop? SO, if the exploiters used their ill gotten Zen from exploited AD's and bought stuff from the Cash Shop, did CRYPTIC?PWE get those sales?

    I understand they don't want to wipe.

    - Many players will stop playing.
    - Many players will think they are scammers.
    - This MMO will be over.

    They should've just done an economy/item-rollback of 70 hours.
    Sure, people would lose stuff they payed for, etc.
    But at least the game is normal again + you didn't lose progress (exp).
  • fotzikfotzik Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    unscrewed wrote: »
    I understand they don't want to wipe.

    - Many players will stop playing.
    - Many players will think they are scammers.
    - This MMO will be over.

    They should've just done an economy/item-rollback of 70 hours.
    Sure, people would lose stuff they payed for, etc.
    But at least the game is normal again + you didn't lose progress (exp).

    Except it goes back longer than 70 hours. Still they lost a lot of player already by just doing this so they still lose, guess they rather want exploiters and people that don't care instead of people that do care.
  • scarymary1scarymary1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 7 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    This is a fair response. I hope the "consolation prize" has some nice stuff in it! My GF had gotten past level 20 when the servers went down, and this morning she's back to 15. :(
  • matl088matl088 Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    To be fair, the item better have a cat. Considering nearly the whole server has one already.
  • ashkedawnashkedawn Member Posts: 113 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    unscrewed wrote: »
    I understand they don't want to wipe.

    - Many players will stop playing.
    - Many players will think they are scammers.
    - This MMO will be over.

    They should've just done an economy/item-rollback of 70 hours.
    Sure, people would lose stuff they payed for, etc.
    But at least the game is normal again + you didn't lose progress (exp).


    Many players have stopped playing already. And if you think the game is normal again you are delusional...unless having hundreds of mounts, cats, zed and AD out there that was given to players and guilds by the exploiters and is not going to be removed is normal for you.
This discussion has been closed.